Disappointing: Sweetgreen Changes Name Of Burrito Bowl, Bowing To Chipotle
from the must-be-chicken-in-that-bowl dept
A few weeks back, we talked about a lawsuit Chipotle filed against Sweetgreen, a restaurant chain dedicated mostly to serving salads and grain bowls. The suit centered on Sweetgreen announcing a new menu item: a “Chipotle Burrito Bowl.” We found the entire suit quite odd, given that Sweetgreen’s menu item is named in a way that makes it purely descriptive. It’s a burrito bowl with chipotle flavoring. That isn’t the sort of thing that equates to trademark infringement and mostly serves to point out that Chipotle, the restaurant, did a terrible job naming itself if it wanted to trademark its business name. I concluded the post thusly:
In other words, Chipotle is mostly suing as a result of its own original sin: it chose a name for itself that can be used as well to describe a sort of food or flavor on offer. I don’t expect this suit to get very far, though that may not be the point. Sweetgreen is much smaller than Chipotle and this may simply be a bullying attempt by the latter.
As we’ve pointed out a zillion times, trademark bullying works far too often. And this appears to be yet another instance of it working. While I’m supremely confident that a fight through a trial over the suit would not yield a victory for Chipotle, we’ll never get to find out if I’m right, since Sweetgreen has already changed the name of its menu item.
Those looking forward to a legal showdown between the two fast casual competitors will be disappointed, however. Within two days of the suit being filed, Sweetgreen agreed to change the name, CNBC confirmed.
According to CNBC, an agreement in principle has been reached between the two rival chains, and Sweetgreen’s newest menu item will henceforth be known as the Chicken + Chipotle Pepper Bowl. The amended moniker has already been added to the Sweetgreen website, where the dish is described as having “an all-grains base, citrusy black beans, and house-made roasted chipotle salsa.”
That this name change would result in the suit being resolved makes even less sense to me. The Chipotle is still in there. The only thing that changed was a swap of terms that are arguably even more descriptive and generic than “chipotle.” Either the damn thing is a burrito bowl or it isn’t. Why changing it to a “pepper” bowl should placate the suits over at Chipotle is completely beyond me, other than my guessing that someone finally took a look at this suit, decided it was a total loser if it went to trial, and decided to opt for getting a pint of blood to declare victory.
Hell, none of this even keeps Sweetgreen from selling burrito bowls generally.
Names aside, both Sweetgreen and Chipotle are now selling burrito bowls, and both offered promotions in conjunction with National Burrito Day on April 6. It looks like the next contentious battle between the two will be fought over sales.
It sure sounds like, on the merits, Sweetgreen ripped up a ticket for a winning horse. Still, as stated in the original post, Chipotle is big and Sweetgreen is not, and so we have yet another annoying instance of trademark bullying working.
Filed Under: burrito bowl, burritos, chipotle burrito bowl, trademark
Companies: chipotle, sweetgreen
Comments on “Disappointing: Sweetgreen Changes Name Of Burrito Bowl, Bowing To Chipotle”
WTF even. Dumbest trademark bullying and result of the year candidate.
If Timmy really can’t understand why “Chicken + Chipotle Pepper Bowl” might be acceptible to Chipotle while “Chipotle Burrito Bowl” is not, he really has no business working as a writer.
I’ll give him a hint: it has to do with the ambiguity of “Chipotle” as a noun vs as an adjective
Re:
Pretty much this. “Chipotle Burrito Bowl” can be read as “a burrito bowl from Chipotle” a lot better than “Chicken + Chipotle Pepper Bowl” can be read as from Chipotle.
Sure doesn’t excuse going so far as “no business working as a writer” my dear AC.
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Re: Re:
To clarify, no business working as a writer in this field. In claiming to be confused by any aspect of this case, Tim reveals himself to be lazy, stupid, or dishonest. Any one of which disqualifies him from from being taken seriously as a journalist. If he wants to put so little work into understanding his supposed area of expertise, or thinks pretending to be confused by really quite simple concepts is a useful rhetorical move, I hear Fox has a slot open these days. If he is sincerely confused, perhaps horoscopes would be more his speed.
Re: Re: Re:
“Chipotle Burrito Bowl” – Can either of you explain precisely which part of that menu item’s name is NOT purely descriptive?
If not, it’s simply not trademark infringement. You cannot commit trademark infringement with a purely descriptive use of a word or term.
Re: Re: Re:2
Chipotle is both a pepper and a restaurant. The restaurant’s lawyers would argue that the term Chipotle Burrito Bowl is ambiguous as to whether it is a burrito bowl made by the restaurant or flavoured with the pepper. Whether or not you think that argument has merit, pretending not to understand that it is being made is dishonest and rhetorically unpersuasive. Genuinely not understanding that it is the argument being made is a sign that you should not be permitted to operate a keyboard unsupervised.
Re: Re: Re:3
And a somewhat obscure pepper, for people who aren’t familiar with Mexican food. I’d heard of the restaurant long before I learned it was also an ordinary word.
Re: Re: Re:3
I’ll just point out that all the trademarks CMG has registered as word marks for chipotle specifies that word is stylized in various form. They have zero word marks for chipotle used in describing a food item which means no rights to Chipotle Burrito Bowl unless it’s stylized as described in one of their registrations.
If you bothered to actually peruse all the trademarks CMG has registered you would of course know this, instead you just come across as an asshole who actually don’t know shit. Perhaps it is you who shouldn’t operate keyboards unsupervised?
Re: Re: Re:4
Yeah, how dare I not perform a thorough review of the last decade’s fast food patent filings before commenting on a poorly written blogpost. Tough you might think if something like that were relevant, a competent writer might mention it in his post about the trademark dispute.
Re: Re: Re:5
You’ve made not one good or valid argument yet. It isn’t that they aren’t understood, it’s that they are bad.
Re: Re: Re:5
By your response I gather you didn’t read the first article referenced about the lawsuit here on TD which explained the trademark issue, you didn’t either look up the trademarks in question. This means of course that you put forth an argument without even expending even the tiniest amount of energy to actually inform yourself before writing “Tim reveals himself to be lazy, stupid, or dishonest” – which actually describes exactly your behavior.
So take your lazy, stupid, or dishonest ass somewhere else, I suggest you stick to only reading horoscopes from this day on because that seems to be the height of what intellectual effort you can accomplish before giving up.
Re: Re: Re:6
Holding commenters on an article to a higher standard than the article itself is an interesting position to take.
Re: Re: Re:7
What some of us do expect, however, is that people DO read the prior artixles before commenting.
If you are confusex, we u derstand. If you can’t read, forget the fucking horoscope, a picture book might be more your speed.
If you’re here to harass the writer though…
Leave.
Re: Re: Re:7
I’d expect someone commenting on an article and saying that the writer doesn’t know his shit to actually have a factual basis for that. If someone can’t even be bothered to look up the facts before opening their trap, that’s quite telling isn’t it?
Re: Re: Re:7
Translation: You’re illiterate.
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imma go with: you can’t even identify an adjective.
Also: Totally irrelevant.
Re: Re:
How is the ambiguity of a phrase irrelevant to an article about a lawsuit over that phrase being settled by the phrase’s replacement with a different, unambiguous phrase? Particularly since the writer expresses confusion as to why the replacement was an acceptible compromise to both parties involved.
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It not whether the bullied will win, but rather they can afford to win.
The next step for corporate America- WORDS as a subscription service. Want to sell burgers? You’ll need to buy permission to use the WORD first, and pay a monthly fee to keep using it. Putting cheese on those? That’ll be an extra ten bucks…